Take Me Out to the Ball Game!

Happy Independence Day to the United States of America! Thank you to all who have given of themselves to serve our nation and those who continue to serve as part of our armed forces to allow the United States to be the beautiful land of the free and home of the brave. We honor you!

While today marks our 238th birthday as an independent nation, we obviously weren't able to celebrate the traditional way at home with parades, barbecues, fireworks, and other family festivities. Good thing we had each other!

We all spent our fourth of July evening with a traditional American past and present time activity....watching baseball! It was a lot of fun, and made us feel a bit like home. We attended a Korean professional baseball league game where we witnessed the Doosan Bears beat the Samsung Lions, 5-4.


While the stadium wasn't quite as big, and there was no announcer, I have to say, it was very interesting. Korean fans are quite coordinated and persistent about chanting out a variety of cheers for their team. Cheerleaders get the crowd going for each team, as well as a male "team spirit leader" and two drummers. Many chants had tunes that sounded familiar to our own tunes, so we even got into it and cheered on the game! It was a neat experience. It was neat to be in one of the sports complex facilities that was utilized for the Summer Olympics in 1988.

Another difference in the professional baseball atmosphere were the food choices. While there were no hotdogs or french fries or popcorn or other traditional ball game foods we have in the United States, we had to settle for Burger King, KFC, or dried squid!

All in all, this was an awesome experience. As a sports fan, I am glad we got to part-take in the game, especially on our nation's special day of celebration.

Happy July 4th Everyone!

Music in the Kitchen

Transforming everyday kitchen utensils into musical instruments:
that's how Korean's put on a show! 

Wow what a week so far! There are so many exciting things to do and see and four weeks is certainly not enough. I have learned so much about myself as well as those on the trip with me. I know this experience is more than touring historic sites, planning lessons, and taking a language course - it’s about growing as an individual and becoming a better agricultural educator. My experiences here will not only shape my own learning capabilities but they will tie into my teaching methods and the ideas and lessons I will present to my future classroom.

We visited so many places today and experienced a lot of Korean culture. Hands down though my favorite part of our day of being the American tourists was the NANTA show; who would have ever guessed we would have the chance to view a show in a different country and be able to understand it?

Using kitchen objects to make music? Say what? Check out this link to see a glimpse of what we got to experience. Some of us got a little more of an experience than others; I wish I could show you Dr. Barrick and Cassidy got on stage and got to race against two other audience members in a "cake" making contest.  Sadly, they couldn’t pull off the win. 

With only 5 characters onstage they really pull the crowd in. Giving us a one of a kind experience, with food flying and knives chopping a beat was found in every move. With only an hour to create a wedding banquet we even felt the pressure put on the three cooks. With the help of the manager’s nephew chaos erupted in the kitchen as they rushed against time. With some dance numbers and intense music the group managed to pull of the dinner in the end with the help of the nephew.

In the end the show had a few lessons to take away that I believe we all need to take a step back and think about.

1) We all have our time to shine.  The manager’s nephew struggled to keep up with the cooks in the beginning. He started off by following the actions of those around him. But when the time came for him to shine, boy did he shine. The nephew saved the day by making the cake for the wedding. 

2)  Sometimes we need to rely on others.  Not one of the cooks would have been able to create the meal on such a short notice however by working together as a team they were able to pull through.

Life lessons can be learned anywhere and sometimes we just need to soak in what we have just witnessed.

This experience is passing by so quickly and I hope I am able to pick up on all the lessons in front of me every day. These next few weeks are going to fly by and I cannot believe how much I have already learned in the past week.